With the bulk of drills set to take place over the weekend, the most exciting thing to happen at the NFL Combine might be the dumbest thing imaginable. On Wednesday a chance encounter between FOX’s Jordan Schultz, and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport at an Indianapolis Starbucks led to the saddest public beef possible, over the stupidest thing imaginable.
The saddest NFL insider beef that led to a fight in a Starbucks, explained
This is so dumb.
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
It all kicked off this week when Shultz reported a clandestine meeting took place between Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford in Montana, indicating the talk was about whether or not the Rams’ QB would accept a trade to the Raiders.
It appears Rapoport saw this report and went about vetting the information, which is, yanno ... what a reporter does. Roughly an hour after Shultz’s tweet, Rap seemed to contradict the scoop.
There’s definitely a little salt on this when Rap makes a point of saying it did not include “hosting” or “recruiting,” which is exactly what Schultz said happened. So basically we have two reports placing two people in the same place at the same time, but differing in what actually went down.
Now, the adult thing to do would be saying to yourself: “That’s fine, I trust my sources,” and leave it at that. For some reason Schultz really got upset that Rapoport seemingly corrected him, and fired back — 16 minutes after Rapoport’s tweet.
It’s here things got much, much stupider. Media members, agents, and league-adjacent people are staying at the Marriott in Indianapolis, with it being the media hotel for the combine. Schultz and Rapoport were in the lobby Starbucks at the same time, and Schultz decided to take it out of the dirt sheets and into the streets.
A report from Pro Football Talk indicates that things went off the rails very, very quickly. Rapoport was speaking to an agent in the Starbucks when he was confronted by Schultz, and their encounter went a little something like this:
Schultz: “We need to talk.”
Rapoport: “No, we don’t.”
[Shultz starts accusing Rapoport of something, then gets in his face]
Schultz: “If you have anything to say it to me, say it to my f****** face. If this continues we’re going to have a f****** problem.”
[Rapoport asks Schultz to step back]
Schultz: “If this happens again, we’re gonna have f****** problem. Now I’ll step back.”
This is a whole lot of ire over a conflicting report about a a meeting in Montana, but c’est la vie. It’s also especially funny that this happened in a Starbucks, because Schultz is the son of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
Evidently Rapoport contacted NFL Security about the incident, who are currently looking into the beef in the Starbucks. Now, less than 24 hours removed from the incident we’e got Adam Schefter making jokes.
When it comes to who’s in the wrong, I don’t know. What I do know if that if you’re getting dunked on by Adam Schefter you’re both probably being dumb.
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